Director's Blog

Kori and I are are relaxing — though not really resting — in chilly Darjeeling before heading to Delhi and then home. Our time in Kalimpong was brief, but lovely. We enjoyed spending time at all five of our children's homes, and felt encouraged not only by our staff, but also by the leaders who joined us on the trip.

I already miss the kids in Kalimpong, but I'm enjoying a couple of days with Kori. This is a great opportunity to regroup before heading back into what is sure to be a very busy year at the Asia's Hope office.

It really is cold here in Darjeeling, much more than I had imagined. As no hotels here enjoy the benefits of central heating, I may have erred in reserving one of the cheaper ones in town. When we checked into our room, we could see our breath. The tiny, portable heater is doing its best, but it's never quite enough to keep us warm.

I'm certain that this hotel lacks even the most basic insulation, and the large windows that dominate the main wall in our room do not close completely. They do however provide hot water bags for the bed upon request, and we've requested them a number of times already. We also bought ourselves some long-johns last night. I'm not sure we would have been able to sleep without them.

This morning we got up to find the entire town shuttered. A beloved local politician has apparently died, and nearly every restaurant and shop has closed for the day to honor his passing. We were lucky enough to find found one small place that consented to make breakfast for us, although they made us walk through the kitchen, and they kept their front doors blocked and locked so no one would think they were dishonoring the dead.

After a decent breakfast of toast, eggs and hashbrowns, we decided to walk the town. We traipsed about the neighborhood for around two hours. Despite the cold, this would not be particularly strenuous at home. But at 7,000 feet above sea level in Darjeeling, where every road is a hill, it was pretty exhausting. Thank God I'm not suffering from altitude sickness (I had it last year and it was not fun at all), but I still feel like my lungs are wrapped tightly in an ACE bandage.

We did find one other place that was open for business, the bakery at Glenarry's. We shared a pot of tea and a couple of cookies before returning for a rest to our hotel. The hotel is still very cold, but we've cuddled up together with some hot water bottles, and we're trying to decide if and when we should search for some place to serve us lunch.

Despite the fact that the mountains are shrouded in clouds and we are a bit cold, Kori and I are having a really nice time. This is an amazing country — every dish is delicious, and every street is filled with sights, sounds and smells that we can't find at home.

I find that I'm not taking many photos on this leg of the trip, so you'll have to take my word for it: India is beautiful, it's people are amazing, and Darjeeling is a place you really want to visit. You may, however, want to find a warmer time of year to do so.

I really enjoyed the Leadership Conference. It was a real joy to meet new friends and colleagues from around the region. But I have to admit that there were times during the sessions — especially those sessions given entirely in Nepali — that I couldn't help thinking, "I'd sure love to be playing with the kids right now."

Over the last couple of days, we've made up for lost time and jumped into the playing, the dancing and the laughing — with gusto. Monday was Republic Day, a celebration of the country's full independence from British rule, which was finally achieved 66 years ago when India's first constitution took effect. We spent a couple of hours in the morning attending a parade at the town's stadium.

School children join in a parade to celebrate India's Republic Day.

Later, we capped a full afternoon and evening of home visits and playing by attending a concert given in our honor by our kids. We gathered in the upper room at one of our houses, and enjoyed a full two hours (maybe more!) of songs, skits and dances, prepared by our kids for our enjoyment.

You would not believe the beauty, the skill, the joy — but you'll have to, because my camera battery died right before the concert, and I had somehow failed to charge my backup. I took some iPhone video, but the room was dimly lit and the footage looks like it was smuggled out of cold war East Berlin, shot with a 70s-era CIA-issue potato-camera. So, about an hour or so into the concert, I committed to not stressing out about the lack of a decent camera, and I just threw myself into enjoying the evening.

After the concert, we ate a delicious dinner prepared by our staff. Our team assumed that we would leave for our hotel shortly after dinner. We had no idea that the staff had prepared a bonfire in the front yard — perfect for the chilly mountain evening — and had set up speakers for a dance party.

And so we danced. From the oldest — Dr. John Campbell — to the youngest — tiny two-year-old Sabina — we all twisted and shouted, boogied and bopped. After more than two hours, with our hearts full and our strength emptied, the moms and dads turned off the music and sent us stumbling back to our hotel.

I regret not having good pictures and video from the evening, but I wonder if I would have had as much fun if I'd been trying to capture it all for posterity. Some moments are best lived only once. Perhaps this was one of them.

Yesterday was more relaxed. We walked around the town and did a little shopping in the morning and then headed out to visit home 2 in the afternoon. We played cricket, carem and badminton and shared tea and prayers with Pastor Sunil, his wife Punam, their wonderful daughters, the staff and kids.

Today will be more of the same. I have a little bit of work work to do — new headshot photos of each of the kids, some strategy discussion with our national director — but I expect to have plenty of time for fun and games with the kids.

Our first-ever Himalayan Leaders Conference is finished, and the hundreds of leaders who attended are now making their way back home. They arrived and are leaving via planes, trains, motorcycles, buses and taxis. Some came from three days away, as far as Thimpu, Bhutan.

It was a special pleasure to be joined by Savorn Ou, director of Asia's Hope, Cambodia. He spoke on "Renewing Our Vision." Pastors Jay O'Brien (Scarlet City Church, Columbus, Ohio) and Brad Isch (Narrow Road Church, Columbus, Ohio) also shared encouraging and inspiring words with the Himalayan leaders in attendance.

We invited and expected around 250 delegates: around 450 arrived. No one was turned away, everyone was hosted and fed. Our main auditorium was packed; we had to open two overflow rooms — at one point, there were more people watching via closed-caption TV outside the auditorium than in the seats we had originally expected to be filled.

The logistics of this sort of endeavor escape me, but our staff and a small army of volunteers made it work, seemingly without stress.

We were led in worship by an excellent gospel ensemble, the Hallelujah Choir from the neighboring state of Sikkim, and by our own Asia's Hope kids. And we were honored by the presence of many notable pastors, church planters and movement leaders.

I believe that, for a number of reasons I could share with you in person, this is a crucial time for our movement. Many changes are underway in India, and the relationships we have invested in will prove invaluable as we face rapidly a changing political and social climate.

I was encouraged both by the number of young, dynamic leaders in attendance and the mature — even elderly — leaders who are still working hard every day.

Despite many challenges the future is extraordinarily bright for the Himalayan region and the nation of India. I look forward to seeing the kids in our care grow in confidence and experience and take leadership positions in their society.

There are many more things I could share about our time at the Himalayan Leaders Conference, but those will have to wait for a face-to-face opportunity. Thank you for your prayers and support.

Our team woke up early this morning and took a short drive up to the Tharpa Choling monastery for a spectactular view of the snow-capped Himalayas. I have neither the photographic equipment nor the skills to adequately capture the majesty of the view, but the pics I snapped give an approximation — a thumbnail sketch — of the amazing scenery.

After a delicious lunch at the King Thai Multicuisine Restaurant (it's not Thai, so the name remains a mystery to me), we headed out to visit Kalimpong 3, and experienced true beauty of a different kind.

Pastor Brad Isch and his congregation, Narrow Road Church in Heath, Ohio, have been working hard to raise the funds to fully support the Kalimpong 3 children's home for more than a year. Until today, no one from the church has had the chance to actually visit the home. Today, Brad's faith and faithfulness were rewarded with sparkling smiles, tender hugs and some intense games of steal-the-bacon, tug-of-war and red-light-green-light.

The kids were a little bewildered that Brad, a man they'd never met, seemed to know each of their names. "Hello, Wangden. Hi, Susmita!" he'd say. They had no idea that he had spent hours poring over a tiny flip-book with each of their pictures, working hard to memorize the names and faces so he could greet them personally.

After a couple of hours at Kalimpong 3, we reluctantly pulled ourselves away; this was not our only new begining to celebrate today. We drove a short distance down the road and arrived at our Kalimpong43 home. Tonight was the first visit as sponsors by representatives from Vista Church in Dublin, Ohio and Scarlet City Church in Columbus. Scarlet City's pastor, Jay O'Brien, visited Asia's Hope India last summer, but his church had not yet entered into a long-term partnership with Asia's Hope. Greg Smith, a representative from Vista, which co-sponsors this project with Scarlet City, visited a couple of years ago, and has been working hard ever since to raise support and awareness for our ministry in Kalimpong. He's joined on this trip by his wife Linda. It's her very first visit to India.

It was a real treat for me to watch the kids and staff of KP4 introduce themselves one-by-one to Jay, Greg and Linda. I was especially touched to see that one of the girls who at the time of admission into the home had been extremely malnourished, depressed and psychologically fragile was now smiling confidently and playing with the other children. The transformation was striking — when I saw her, I did a double take and had to confirm with Pastor Nandu that this was indeed the same child.

The beauty of the Himalayan mountains is often described as unmatched. But I know I speak for our entire team when I say that the smiles and the laughter we experienced today are more memorable, more beautiful by far.

Two words: "Our plane..." That was all I wrote for my blog post on the day we traveled from the U.S. to India. I think I fell asleep, drooling on the keyboard after penning that scintillating travelogue masterpiece.

Yeah. We were tired.

Our original flight plan had us leaving Columbus, flying to DC, crossing the pond to Vienna and swinging down to Delhi on Austrian Airlines. Unfortunately, our Delhi connection was cancelled, and we had to scramble. The airline booked us on a flight that took us from Vienna to London (hours in the wrong direction) and then from London to Delhi — on Air India.

Ah, Air India. How I hope to never see you again.

I'm an intrepid traveler, and I have a relatively high threshold for personal discomfort. But our trip had already been a bit stressful, and we were entering the zombification stage of world travel, the only cure for which is a long sleep in a reasonably comfortable chair. The seats on our newly-booked flights were standard-issue Guantanamo-transfer surplus, wooden deck chairs wrapped in Band Aids and covered with a burlap sack. My back is still killing me; I could have gotten better sleep in one of the overhead luggage compartments.

I'm sure it wasn't as bad as I'm making it sound, but after a day of missed flights, long layovers and little-to-no sleep, it sure seemed like it. And our new schedule deposited us in Delhi at 6am, rather than 1am, robbing us of the few hours of sleep we'd been counting on to get us ready for a day of sightseeing.

Thankfully, the cab ride was uneventful and we found ourselves at a lovely little hotel staffed by angels of mercy who checked us in quickly and didn't disturb us for 10 or 12 hours. We skipped breakfast, stayed in bed most of the day, grabbed a quick and unsatisfying lunch and returned to bed. After a nap, we had a nice dinner in the hotel and went immediately back to our extraordinarily comfortable bed.

Yesterday morning, we were born anew. We woke, showered, had an excellent breakfast at the hotel and headed out by autorickshaw to the nearest Metro station. The Delhi Metro is a wonder of modern technology and an indication that this city of 23 million isn't messing around. The metro is clean, comfortable, safe and efficient. And they're building new stations everywhere. It cost us $3 bucks for a day pass, and took us everywhere we wanted to go.

And we wanted to go to the Red Fort, one of Delhi's most iconic structures. Built in 1696 by Shah Jahan (who also built the Taj Mahal, the Jama Masjid mosque and dozens of other world-class joints), the former palace and the seat of the Mughal empire occupies about 300 acres in the heart of Old Delhi.

Our short walk from the Metro station was a shocking reminder that much of Delhi has been left behind by the technological and urban-planning revolution underway. Hundreds of people were living on the streets, huddled together under light blankets unlikely to provide much protection from the cold; a few were up and about, staggering from exhaustion or intoxication, burning plastic bags and garbage for a little extra warmth. Some had scraped together enough money to buy a chapati and a spoonful of dal from the back of a truck. Others just stared, hollow-cheeked and empty hearted.

Despite its metal detectors, friskers, snipers, guards and machine gun nests, the Red Fort is an oasis of calm. We wandered its tree-lined avenues and marveled at its sandstone and marble construction bedecked with carvings and inset with semi-precious stones. We strolled through its museums and exhibitions and left with a deeper understanding of India's rich history of conquest and resistance.

After the Red Fort, we walked to Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in India. It can reportedly accommodate more than 30,000 worshippers, all of whom we encountered on our previous visit to the place. (Travel Pro Tip: don't visit a gigantic mosque at noon on the first day of Ramadam in 116F weather in pouring rain and with small children.) This visit was much, much nicer, the weather in the 50s andno crowds in sight.

We took a pedicab to through the ancient Chandni Chowk bazaar to our next metro stop, and had a relaxing lunch and afternoon stroll in Hauz Khaz, a lake-side shopping district packed with pubs, bistros and boutiques.

If it sounds like all we've been doing is sightseeing, well, that's all we've been doing. And we're having a grand time, just Kori and me. It's almost like a second honeymoon, one that will be ending in 3...2...1...

After a day of riding the rails, racing around in autorickshaws and leisurely rolling about in pedicabs, we made it back to our hotel, checked out and took a taxi to the Classic Diplomat, a tidy but downmarket transit hotel near the airport. We had dinner and then met up with the rest of our team: John Campbell, Jay O'Brien, Brad Isch and Greg and Linda Smith. We hung out for a while in the hotel pub and then stumbled back to our beds.

It's almost time for breakfast, after which we'll check out, pop over to the airport and board a plane for Siliguri. We'll be picked up by Pastor Nandu and enjoy a harrowing yet gorgeous drive through the foothills of the Himalayas, and will — Lord willin' and the road don't collapse — be in Kalimpong by nightfall.

Keep praying for us. We're all healthy and happy and ready to see what God has in store.

On Saturday, Kori and I will kiss our kids goodbye and leave for a two-and-a-half-week trip to India. This is the first time we've traveled overseas without the kids, so there's a bit of anxiety all 'round. The boys are 16 and 17, so they'll barely notice our absence. But Xiu Dan is only 9; being without mom and dad for so long is likely to hit her a little harder.

We've covered all of the bases — our dear friends Peter and Keilah will be staying at our house with the kids, and we've updated our wills (assets divided between the children; debts go to the cat) — so I think we'll be fine. Though I'll miss the my kids, I'm looking forward to some quality time with Kori. In just a few years, we'll be empty nesters. We'll consider this a dry run.

Some of the beautiful kids from Asia's Hope India. I can't wait to see them next week!

This trip represents a number of other "firsts," too.

First ever Himalayan Leaders Conference

Our time in India will be dedicated to hosting Asia's Hope's first ever Himalayan Leaders Conference. We're bringing in hundreds of pastors from all over the region — paying for everything from their transportation to their food and lodging — for a few days of leadership training, networking and encouragement. Many of the leaders in attendance will be coming from countries where it's simply too dangerous to gather in the name of Jesus.

These pastors comprise the front line of defense against human trafficking of children: many are caring for orphaned children in their homes and churches. All share their table with the needy. Most of the children in the care of Asia's Hope India have come from the villages in which these pastors minister.

We depend heavily on a wide network of indigenous churches, and I'm praying that this conference will build valuable connections and will increase the Himalayan church's capacity to care for orphaned children at high risk of sexual and economic exploitation.

Cambodia director's first visit to Asia's Hope India

Our conference is not only hosting guests from India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh: we're also honored to welcome Asia's Hope Cambodia's national director, Pastor Savorn Ou, who will be visiting Asia's Hope India for the very first time.

The "cross-pollination" of leaders is a real priority for Asia's Hope. I can provide our national directors with funds, structure and philosophical guidance, but I can't fully appreciate the challenges they face on the ground. I can't give nuanced advice based on first-hand experience in the same way that one of their directly-analagous colleagues can. When Asia's Hope first began work in India in 2010 and 2011 we sent our director, Pastor Nandu, and his family to Cambodia to spend a few weeks with Savorn and his staff. I'm so pleased that Nandu and the staff of Asia's Hope India will be able to reciprocate the warm welcome Savorn gave them while in Cambodia, and I expect long-term benefits for Asia's Hope as our senior leaders share their wisdom, their vision and their passion for the work.

Savorn will be speaking at the conference. His topic is "Renewing Our Vision." I can't think of a better person to bring this message than Savorn, a man who has built one of the finest residential orphan care systems anywhere. As Savorn says, "Vision is hope with a blueprint." I believe in our blueprint. I also believe that we have the leadership framework and support network in India to see those plans come to life on a grand scale. And I know that Pastor Savorn's presence at this conference will be catalytic. I believe that we'll be looking back on this conference as a transformative moment in Asia's Hope's history.

First time visits from new sponsoring churches

We'll be joined on this trip by Brad Isch, Greg and Linda Smith and Jay O'Brien. Brad is the pastor of Narrow Road Church in Heath, Ohio, new sponsors of our Kalimpong 3 home. This will be his first trip to India, and the first person from his church to visit the kids at KP3. Greg and Linda are from Vista Church in Dublin, Ohio. Vista is co-sponsoring our Kalimpong 4 home with Jay's church, Scarlet City, in Columbus, Ohio. Greg visited Asia's Hope India once before on a vision trip in 2012; this is Linda's first time. Jay has visited twice, but this is the first trip as a sponsoring pastor.

This is going to be a wonderful time of celebration, something like a cross between an inauguration gala and an adoption party. The relationships that will be formed on this trip will transform countless lives in India and in America. Again, a historic day for Asia's Hope.

Anticipating new firsts

As you can probably tell, I have high expectations for this trip. Lord-willin'-an-the-internet-don't-fail, I'll be posting lots of stories and photos. Please follow along. Bookmark my blog, follow Asia's Hope on Twitter or like us on Facebook. And invite your friends to do the same. I could use the prayers, and I'm sure you can use the encouragement.

Kori and I spent a few hours this week looking through old pictures. We marvelled at the faces that smiled back at us — baby versions of my nearly-adult sons and barely-adult versions of middle-aged us.

As parents, we're moving into a stage where we're looking at our boys' childhood in retrospect. And we find ourselves asking, "How'd we do? Did we make the right investments? Did our sacrifices pay off? Did we fight the right battles?"

I took this picture more than a decade ago. It shows the very first Asia's Hope children from our first home in Battambang, Cambodia. Many of children are now young adults heading to university and to their first jobs!

It's sobering at times, but it is also exciting. My boys somehow survived middle school, and they're becoming intelligent, articulate adults that I can actually imagine moving out of my house at some point in the future. They're thinking about college and starting to conceive of an independent future that might someday include marriages and careers. And I can see it. Sure, I'm not ready to push them out the nest tomorrow, but their futures are bright.

At Asia's Hope, we're experiencing this kind of transition, but on a much larger scale. Many of our high-school aged kids are excelling in their studies, taking top marks in their schools. Others, like our world-class cricketers in Thailand, are representing their country in international competition! Others have had the chance to travel abroad perform music together.

We now have more than 50 kids in university and dozens of others pursuing technical or vocational training. We have students studying to be teachers, doctors, lawyers, mechanics, barbers, pastors, interior designers, engineers and bankers. Some of our graduates have gone on to start their own businesses, others have gotten married and started families. Some have returned to work as Asia's Hope staff!

Asia's Hope has also added more than 50 new orphaned kids; we've rescued them from neglect and exploitation, and we've given them new, permanent, loving families. I can't wait to watch them heal, grow and succeed.

Thanks to the generosity of Asia's Hope supporters, many of our older kids from AH India were able to go on an educational trip to Kolkata — it was their first time to a big city, first time on a train, first time in a hotel and first time to see the ocean!

The boys' team on which our Asia's Hope cricketers play won 3rd place in the national youth competition. The girls' team one first place and will represent Thailand internationally!

A choir from Asia's Hope Thailand toured Korea. What an amazing experience for them!

Scholars from Asia's Hope Thailand placed highly in their classes!

More than 1500 people joined Asia's Hope Cambodia on our Battambang campus to celebrate Christmas.

Students like Seyha, from our Prek Eng 3 home, have entered vocational training programs and apprentices, learning valuable skills that will help them be self-sufficient as adults.

And while we can never ensure success for any of our children — our own or Asia's Hope's — we have high expectations for each of the nearly 800 kids at Asia's Hope based on the successes of our older kids. And we can answer those weighty questions with confidence. "Yes. We're doing it right. We're making the right investments, we're fighting the right battles. Our sacrifices are paying off."

2015 promises to be another amazing year. Dozens more of our kids will be graduating from high school and moving on to university, to vocational training and to first jobs. And we'll be adding more homes, more staff and more kids. We'll be starting some exciting new capital campaigns, and completing construction on a number of projects currently in the works.

Will you continue to pray for us? And will you consider making a year-end gift or scheduling a meeting with me in the next few weeks to discuss how you can help us accomplish the mission God has given us in 2015?

This January, Asia's Hope will be sponsoring our first ever Himalayan Leaders Conference. My wife Kori and I will be co-hosting this conference with our India director, Pastor Nandu Gurung, and his wife Anu. And we couldn't be more excited!

We're inviting hundreds of pastors from Northeast India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh to join us in our hometown of Kalimpong, West Bengal. We'll be subsidizing transportation, lodging and food costs for pastors who would be otherwise unable to attend.

Whereas most everyone can understand the general benefits of such a conference, one might ask, "why is Asia's Hope hosting this?"

In other words, what does a pastor's conference have to do with orphan care?

As a nearly 100% indigenous organization (outside the U.S., we have a total of zero Western employees), we have deep roots in the Christian communities our ministry serves. The majority of the children in our care were referred to us through a vast, yet under-resourced and often persecuted network of indigenous churches.

This conference gives us a chance to deepen our relationship with those local church partners, and to invite Western pastors to come see what God is doing in his Church in the Himalayas.

Although most of the teaching at the conference will be done by Nepali-Indian pastors, there will be opportunities for visiting pastors to teach, both at the conference and in other settings (e.g. local churches, village outreaches).

We hope that this conference will provide the following:

Encouragement for the indigenous leaders -- Many of the pastors attending this conference operate in relative isolation on a day-to-day basis, serving in communities that are nearly 100% unreached. By inviting a delegation of pastors from the U.S., we honor these leaders and signal both to them and to the community at large our solidarity with the indigenous Church.

Expansion of vision for visiting pastors -- Our ministry in India occupies a unique ethno-geographic and strategic intersection. Although Asia's Hope India's primary agenda is to rescue and raise orphaned kids at high risk of exploitation, we are also deeply enmeshed in a network of local churches committed to evangelism, church planting and leadership development.

We've invited a group of Western pastors who are directly involved with Asia's Hope (their church sponsors one of our homes), indirectly involved (their church has a high concentration of Asia's Hope supporters) and not-yet-involved. We hope that these pastors' interactions with each other and with Asia's Hope's staff and kids will provide clarity for congregations that already or may someday partner with our ministry.

I believe that as Western pastors return to their congregations energized and inspired, this conference will provide a springboard for future partnerships and a deepened sense of commitment for existing ones.

How you can help

Pray — Join us in praying that God will use this conference to encourage and equip the Himalayan Church, and expand the vision of pastors visiting from the West.

Go — If you are a Christian pastor or church looking to expand your church's partnership with Asia's Hope, maybe you should consider attending this conference. Email addison@asiashope.org or call us 614.285.5813 today, as spots are filling up quickly.

At Asia's Hope, we've long asserted that orphaned children do best in families, not institutions. Our newest video echoes other materials we've developed in asserting that our Asia's Hope homes are real families with real moms and dads and real siblings.

That terminology is not entirely uncontroversial. In fact, for the purposes of some academic and social science research into orphan care, an "institution" is any residential program with non-biological family members and paid staff.

But in common parlance, the terms "institution" and "orphanage" have become so loaded, that they complicate any real attempts to evaluate whether or not a particular setting is likely to produce good outcomes for children in difficult situations.

The Dickensian squalor evoked by the term "orphanage" does indeed exist in many of the world's low-nurture orphan care settings. Children do in many cases languish, unloved in institutions run by barely-trained, badly-paid shift workers.

Unfortunately, that image often gets projected onto all residential orphan care models, including excellent ones like ours. As a result, we've seen an upsurge over the last few years of activist groups with a misguided agenda to eliminate, rather than innovate residential orphan care worldwide.

But the best and most relevant research demonstrates that orphaned children can do well in residential care settings. And at Asia's Hope, we believe that our mode of care is signficantly different — and vastly better — than older, more institutional models.

So while some ideologically hardened critics of residential orphan care seem unable to accept that such a thing as "non-institutional, family-style residential care" can exist — to them, all "orphanages" are the same — we're proving them wrong. Every day.

So what's the difference between an institution and a family?

In low-nurture, institutional orphanages, the staff do not view themselves as parents -- they lack the resources, the training and the support to adequately respond to a child's psychological and emotional distres. They are often overworked, tasked with looking after far too many children in a setting that feels more like a hospital or a half-way house than a home. In many cases, caregivers work in shifts and go back to other homes when they aren't "on the job." There is little planning for a child's transition to adulthood; when a kid reaches a certain age, they're simply shown the door. As a result, the children in institutional care remain orphans. They may receive basic nutrition, shelter and medical care, but they never get what an orphaned child needs most: the love of a family.

At Asia's Hope, each home is based on a family model, run by a husband and wife who serve as parents, not simply caregivers. Their biological children live with them at the home, and are raised alongside their new siblings, the orphaned children rescued by Asia's Hope. The home parents are supported by other live-in caregivers and a wide variety of tutors, coaches, nurses and by the wider Asia's Hope community. We offer each child the opportunity to attend university or receive vocational training to help them transition to independent adulthood. And most importantly, we give each of our kids the most important gift imaginable when we remove from them the stigma and the weight of being an orphan by placing them in a loving, permanent family.

We believe Asia's Hope has been called to help change the way the world thinks about, talks about and implements residential orphan care. But we can't do it without you. We need more churches, more businesses, more families and more individuals to join our efforts to improve and expand family-style orphan care around the globe.

Thanks to the hard work of our friends Danny Jackson, Jared Heveron and Gabe DeGarmeaux from Scarlet City Church in Columbus, Ohio and L.A.-based Seth Earnest, we're thrilled to release the first of four videos produced from footage we filmed this summer in Cambodia and India.

This first video, "This is my family," highlights Asia's Hope's key distinctive: we provide real families — not institutions — for orphaned children at high risk of sexual and economic exploitation in Cambodia, Thailand and India.

The next three videos will go more in depth into our model and our strategies to rescue, raise and educate the next generation of Christian leaders in Asia.

We hope these videos will inspire and inform and draw more attention to the wonderful work being done by our staff, and we pray that they will bring new supporters on board to help us provide more families for more orphaned kids.

I had intended to write a tidy, end-of-trip post from Thailand before heading back to the USA. Near the end of my trip, I got extraordinarily busy, and by the time I actually had the time to write, I was already sliding into the Sarlacc that is international travel with kids.

Having survived the voyage from Chiang Mai to Hanoi to Tokyo to Dallas (the Great Pit of Carkoon) to Columbus without losing my luggage, my lunch or any of my children, I weathered the usual jet lag and culture shock with pluck and aplomb.

I returned to find our new offices (more about this in a later post) almost ready for occupancy thanks to the hard work of Addison, Carol and a host of volunteers. So before I find myself inundated with meetings -- which begin in 3...2...1... -- I thought I'd write a quick update.

My trip this summer was amazing. Long, oft-arduous, but really spectacular. For the first time I think I felt the scope of what it is God is doing through Asia's Hope. It's more than just the 800 or so kids and 150-some staff for whom we provide full-time, comprehensive support. It's not only the two schools, 29 homes and countless programs we run. I really believe that God is using Asia's Hope to demonstrate to the Church and to the world at large what true excellence in orphan care can look like.

Our organization isn't perfect; it's a huge challenge to maintain such a high level of care consistenly across so many homes. But we are constantly striving to fulfill our promise of real families for orphaned children. And when it works, it's nearly unbelievable. As one of our visiting supporters told me, "We've been all over the world. We've seen lots of "orphanages." But this is amazing. I never imagined it could be this good."

So while I've returned with a lengthy list of needs and a lot of issues to address over time, I remain so pleased about what God has given us. And I'm excited about increasing our visibility within the aid and development community -- we have a story to tell and a model that others can emulate, adapt and maybe even improve.

The next few months will be packed. We're forging new funding relationships, connecting with new networks of thinkers and doers, strategizing new campaigns and launching new support models that we think will vastly expand our ability to serve not only our existing kids but future generations as well.

I'm thankful for a new space that will allow us to host a wide variety of events, and I can't wait to see who God will bring through our doors. I'm also looking forward to writing more articles about orphan care and international ministry.

Right now I'm slightly daunted but exhilarated. This promises to be a very good, very interesting time for Asia's Hope. Please contact me if you'd like to stop by and hear more, or if you'd like to set up a Skype or phone call.

We arrived at the Asia's Hope church in Doi Saket, Thailand a few minutes late this Sunday. The service had already started. As we entered the back of the building, I heard the children and staff from our 7 local children's homes -- along with neighbors, friends and other organizations' kids -- singing in Thai one of my favorite worship songs...

Blessed be the name of the LordBlessed be Your nameBlessed be the name of the LordBlessed be Your glorious name

This song has been both a comfort and challenge over the last few years. The lyrics of the bridge, taken from the book of Job, have followed me through the hardest of times: a dear friend's divorce, the loss of another friend to cancer, the dissolution of a once-firm friendship, financial difficulties, chaos at work...

You give and take awayYou give and take awayMy heart will choose to sayLord blessed be Your name

I've asked myself more than a few times, "Does God really take away? Does he kill spouses? Does he doom businesses and friendships?" Jesus says that Satan the thief steals but he has come to give abundant life. Even Job admits that he has "spoken of things [he] didn't understand" (Job 42:3).

I'm not sure.

I find it deeply unsettling to think of God -- the father lights and giver of every good gift -- as a taker. Nevertheless, I was moved to the brink of tears to hear these words sung with so much gusto by children who have endured great suffering, profound darkness and life-shattering loss...

Every blessing You pour out I'll turn back to praiseWhen the darkness closes in, LordStill I will say "blessed be the name of the Lord"

All of the kids at Asia's Hope know what it's like to have "the darkness close in." Many of them have seen their parents die in accidents, of sickness, at the hands of criminals, from alcohol and drug abuse. They have been abused, exploited, abandoned, neglected. They've been homeless and hopeless. and have faced hardships and responsibilities the weight of which I can hardly imagine...

And blessed be Your nameWhen I'm found in the desert placeThough I walk through the wildernessBlessed be Your name

Our staff also know the searing pain of injustice, death and deprivation: some are widows, others were themselves orphans, refugees, child soldiers, despised minorities...

Blessed be Your nameIn the land that is plentiful Where your streams of abundance flowBlessed be Your name

It's a privilege to call the staff and kids at Asia's Hope "family." Their dignity, humility, love, talent and perseverence is an inspiration. I pray that as I mature I'll become more like them, and that I will have the faith to face suffering and death with even a fraction of the grace they exhibit on a daily basis.

Our time in Thailand has been a blast. But it's been super busy. I'm here with my family (minus Kori who had to return to the U.S. for work), and with Carol Richardson, her daughter Emily, son Aaron, Emily's fiancee Zeb and their friend Joel. It's been great to see not only Tutu, the kids and staff, but also Tutu's sons Daniel and David.

I'll post more stories soon, but I'm sure you'll enjoy these pictures just as much or more!

This is the first time I've handed my blog over to a guest. But I've been traveling with Gabe this summer, and I want you to hear his heart and his view of the work Asia's Hope is doing. Gabe is a pastor at Columbus, Ohio's Scarlet City Church. Enjoy.

The shortest two parables Jesus’ told are recorded in Matthew 13:

The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. (Matthew 13:44)

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it. (Matthew 13:45-46)

Two parables in three verses. But don’t let the size of the parables fool you. Jesus was a master of packing depth of insight into words.

Until recently I had always heard these parables explained as though people are the ones searching for something, a relationship with God is the treasure, and when we find God he is worth giving everything up for to receive. That has some appeal. Truth be told, God is worth giving everything up for. But there the problem lies. Which of us has given up everything to get God?

Now consider a different way to interpret the parables. God is in search of a great treasure, and when he comes across you he is elated, and in his joy he gives up everything he has in order to bring you into his rightful possession.

God’s grand story of redemption is like a magnificent treasure hunt. When he finds his image bearers, people, buried in the midst of this ash heap of a broken world fractured by sin, he goes and gives away everything, even to the extent of giving his life, to bring us back to him.

“If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all” (Romans 8:31-32)

Upon arriving in Siliguri, India we had lunch with some Asia’s Hope staff and local pastors. We learned the story of two children who were rescued the day before. One child who was abandoned and found eating with pigs in a pig pen. The other was a girl whose father was selling her for 50,000 Rupees (I was told this is considered a reasonable price in human trafficking. It translates to about $850 U.S. dollars), when one pastor connected to Asia’s Hope saw the transaction and intervened.

A day later three new children, abandoned and scared, were brought into the Asia’s Hope India family (the leaders found another girl who recently became a double orphan — both of her parents have died).

Whereas the world may not see much value in the life of an orphan child, the Asia’s Hope family values these children the way Jesus does — the very one who deemed them worth dying for. They are willing to sacrifice creature comforts, conveniences, space in their homes, resources, time, and energy to rescue and offer hope because when they look at people, even the ones the world says amount to little or nothing, and they see a treasure worth giving everything up for. What a sweet picture of the gospel.

Photos in this post taken by Danny Jackson

Prayer: Lord, we confess that it’s easy to overlook people. It’s easy for us to forget the ways that you gave beyond reason and beyond measure to rescue us into your family by the cross of your Son. Help us to see people as you see them. Help us to treasure people the way you treasure us. Help us to love sacrificially the way you love. Amen.

It's 6:00 on a Wednesday morning, and I haven't slept much at all. Even though my transit schedule is relatively light today -- a couple of hours in airports, and a two very short flights -- I always have trouble sleeping the night before I travel. Kori is going home -- back to work -- and I'm taking the kids to Thailand.

We've said our goodbyes in Cambodia, and this morning my heart is full. Our ministry in Cambodia is absolutely flourishing. Our ten homes in Battambang and five in Prek Eng are overflowing with life and love and potential. As one first-time visitor told me this week, "We've supported orphan care projects in other places in the world, and we've seen a lot of different models. But Asia's Hope is so amazing; it's hard to imagine until you've seen it first-hand."

This morning a story from The Guardian hit the Phnom Penh Post. Virginity for sale: inside Cambodia's shocking tradedetails a practice well known to those of us who work among the country's poor and vulnerable kids. And it's not just a practice, it's a single facet of a vast system of injustice wherein children are neglected, abandoned, raped, sold, exploited and trafficked -- often by their own family members.

In the same edition, The Post featured an article about a four-year old girl who had been chained to a post all day for half her young life. Her mother had given her to her captor as collateral for a loan. The situation isn't unique. For Cambodia, it's not even exceptional.

It's not just Cambodia. This kind of abuse and neglect happens all around the world. It's why we're also working in India and in Thailand. And it's why Asia's Hope must succeed.

There are some in the aid and development world who are skeptical of the value of residential orphan care. They say things like, "An orphanage is a 19th Century solution to a 21st Century problem." Some even downplay the magnitude of the global human trafficking and orphan crises, insisting that "sex work" can be empowering for poor children and that orphaned and abandoned kids should always be kept in their communities and families of origin.

As someone who personally reviews every single biography of every single child admitted to an Asia's Hope home, I can tell you that there is still a desperate need for high-quality, family-style residential orphan care for children who cannot be safely placed in their original families or communities.

Today in Cambodia, you'll find both heaven and hell, often on the same street. In a place like Phnom Penh, you'll meet the very best and the very worst people imaginable. There is a real war between good and evil in places like Cambodia and as in all wars, the children suffer the most.

Thank you for your support of Cambodian, Thai and Indian indigenous workers who, with the help of ministries like Asia's Hope, are fighting on the front lines -- fighting for the lives of children who cannot fight for themselves.

If you, your church or your business are looking for ways to directly support the vitally important work of Asia's Hope, please contact me today.

We are safe and sound in Phnom Penh, though you wouldn't know it from my blog posts, which have been non-existent over the last few days.

It's not that there's nothing to say, it's just that I've been going pretty much non-stop for 14 hours a day. Whereas it's usually just my family with me, this year I've also had staff from Asia's Hope in the U.S., a video team from Scarlet City Church and supporters from Columbus, Ohio to lead, guide and chauffer. It's been tiring, but also really exciting; I love introducing Asia's Hope and the countries in which we serve to "newbies." I helps keep my love for the people and places fresh.

Yesterday was an especially exhausting one. We got up, packed 9 of us in the 15-passenger mini-bus I've been driving around Cambodia and picked up the Biehn family from their hotel a few blocks away.

I should stop here and point out that, even in the best of traffic conditions, conveying such a vehicle around Phnom Penh is stressful. It's enormous. The steering is imprecise. The shifter feels like a plunger in a bowl full of rocks. And the other people on the road -- drivers, cyclist, kamikaze motorbikers, pedestrians, stray animals and food carts -- don't really care that you don't know exactly what you're doing or where you're going. They dart in and out on all sides, swarming like a school of fish in a reef.

Yesterday, we didn't experience anything like "the best of traffic conditions." The neighborhood between our hotel and the Biehns' is apparently the site of some week-long royal birthday celebration, so most of the streets are closed, clogged with revelers or both. What should be an easy drive -- straight down this street, turn left on that one -- is always an adventure. But we made it.

We picked the Biehn's up, and brought them to breakfast, after which they returned to their hotel on foot (rational choice on their part), my boys and one Scarlet City guy headed to the market via tuk-tuk, my wife and daughter returned to their hotel by some means unknown to me. I took the Scarlet City guys -- Danny and Janelle Jackson, Pastor Gabe DeGarneaux and his daughter Lilly -- to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

I've been to Tuol Sleng many times. I don't have the mental or emotional energy to process it again here on this blog, but it's a terrible place. 30 years ago, it was quite literally hell on earth: what the entire planet would look like if Satan was given free rein to twist the planet into his hateful image. Torture, dismemberment, murder, lies, violence, injustice -- all at a level that, even after hearing the testimonies, looking at the photos and reading the stories, is unfathomable.

I spent the morning trying to explain it all to 8-year-old Lilly.

Explain it to an 8 year old?I can't even understand it myself. But I did my best.

I talked about the American bombings that killed more than 100,000 Cambodian civilians, the U.S.-Soviet proxy war that used Southeast Asia as its gory chessboard and its government and peoples as its hapless, doomed pawns, the various internal power factions scrambling to take advantage of the chaos. And the evil. Behind it all was capital-E-Evil, Satan's greasy maw and bloody claws tearing, killing and consuming men women and children by the thousands.

We saw the actual instruments of torture -- whips, knives, ropes, flails, shackles, bedframes, buckets, pliers, wires -- all used to beat, maim, rip, shock, crush, drown and hang. We saw the skulls, the bones, the teeth, the clothes the hair. We stared into the eyes of the victims, meticulously photogrpahed and matched to forced, false confessions before being murdered.

And then we left.

We grabbed a quick lunch at the cafe near our hotel, picked up the Biehn's and headed out of the city, over the Mekong to our beautiful new campus at Prek Eng. When we arrived, school was just letting out. The Asia's Hope School hosts about 140 kids, Kindergarten through 6th grade. Because many of our kids now attend public middle and high schools, about 90 of the Asia's Hope School students are "community kids" from the surrounding area. The rest are children who live at our five Prek Eng homes.

Shortly after we arrived, the rain started, scuppering our video shoot agenda for the afternoon. It came down in sheets. In buckets. In torrents. It rained so hard that our homes' front yards became ponds, our sidewalks turned into rivers. I think we may have actually had white water rapids in our school parking lot for a few minutes. It was beautiful; the rain knocked about 20 degrees farenheit off the scorching afternoon heat. It was also loud. Our homes all have metal roofs, so for a while there, it was like being inside a Tom Grosset drum solo. When it was all over and the water receded, the kids ran outside and picked up the fish that had failed to retreat to the safety of the nearby lakes, and the rest of us continued playing with the kids, transitioning from inside to out as the water drained.

At dusk, we piled into the van, exhausted, and headed back to the city. Once we got over the Mekong bridge, we saw that the city hadn't drained very well at all. Major intersections were flooded, and traffic was grinding itself into a maddening knot: thousands of vehicles honking, lurching, stopping and stalling at each crossroads, people driving on sidewalks, through yards, into around and over one another. What should have taken 10 minutes too more than two hours. When we finally got within walking distance of a restaurant, I gave up on driving entirely. Although it took me ten minutes to move 20 feet across two lanes of traffic (one 'official,' the other on the sidewalk), I forced my way onto the front lot of a store, gave the parking lot guard a handful of dollars, went to the counter, bought a moderately priced bottle of hooch that I didn't really want and asked the proprietress if I could park there for a couple of hours. She scowled at me. And then she smiled, shook her head in something like amusement and said, "okay."

We fought our way across the road on foot and collapsed into a Chinese restaurant where we proceeded to order way too much food. After two hours of eating, laughing, talking and drinking tea, we saw that the traffic had subsided, and we made our way back to our respective hotels.

This morning, we're taking it easy. For me that means that I actually get a shower, and don't have to meet anyone for any reason before 9:00am. We will probably take a walk this morning, maybe visit a couple of shops. After lunch, we're heading back out to the campus, hopefully to get some video interviews with Savorn, some of the kids and with me.

Please pray for our productivity and health. So far, none of us has prolapsed a colon, and I haven't hit anyone with my ungainly land yacht. Despite the challenges, we're having a great time. I can't wait to share some of the video with you. If it captures even half of the goodness that is Asia's Hope, my job of funding this beast should become a whole lot easier.

It's 6:30 in the morning, an unreasonable time for me to be blogging, today especially, since I danced for 4 hours last night with about 350 of my favorite people. But our days here in Battambang have been so full, it's been nearly impossible for me to find any time to write.

Between video shoots, staff and partnering org meetings and visits to our homes, we've been going something close to full speed, full time. So we're tired. But it's a good tired, and is probably the emotional and social-interaction equivalent to the exhausted, achy euphoria one feels after competing in some sort of white water rafting marathon. If I wasn't so old, I could do this more than once a year.

I have so many photos I could show you -- I think I'll make this post more pictorial and less narrative. The faces of the kids and staff say more than I could anyway. Suffice it to say, this is the closest to heaven I may ever see on earth. No, these kids don't have perfect lives. All have suffered loss, and many will continue to struggle with the resulting trauma. But there's no better place in the world to recover than a loving, supportive family. And these kids all have one.

Over the last 48 hours, we've driven through mountains, walked in the pouring rain, flown across both the Bay of Bengal and the Gulf of Thailand, ridden in buses, vans and tuk-tuks -- and we're finally unpacked and rested at our hotel in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

All of us are tired, most of us have flirted with some kind of sickness, and two of us are on the powerful antibiotic Cipro. We miss our friends and family in India, but we're thrilled to be back in Cambodia, which has become a real home-away-from-home for my family over the past few years.

We were greeted at the modest but tidy Pochentong Airport by Savorn, our National Director, his wife Sony and all of our Phnom Penh house parents. The Asia's Hope kids were all in school when we arrived, so our reunion with them will have to wait until tomorrow, but it was great to be hugged warmly and welcomed heartily by these people we've grown to love so much.

It's Addison and Jared's first time here, and I think they're just taking everything in: Cambodia can be a bit overwhelming to first time visitors, but heck, we just came from India. This place actually feels a bit serene compared to Mumbai, Kolkata and some of the other places we've passed through.

By the time we got to our hotel, we were all ready for a nap, but I had promised Addison and Jared we'd go out to a tailor to get measured for some shirts (about 1/6th of the price we'd pay in the U.S.), so we left the girls behind and headed out via tuk-tuk to the Khmer Independent Tailor on Sihanouk Boulevard. We placed our orders, grabbed a SIM card for my phone and picked up some necessities (and a couple ice-cream bars) at Lucky Market.

Tonight we're going to have dinner with the staff, get a good night sleep and then spend the morning intoducing Addison and Jared to Phnom Penh. We'll grab a bowl of noodle soup, visit a tea shop and then spend some time at the ever-sobering Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. After lunch, I think we're heading out to Prek Eng to see the kids and visit the new campus for the first time since its completion!

The only things that could put a damper on our great times would be sickness...and traffic. I'm driving a huge van -- a mini-bus, really -- to accommodate our family, the guys and the team from Scarlet City that will be joining us next week. I've never driven anything this big anywhere, and driving in Cambodia can be zooey even in a small vehicle. Oh, and I don't have a Cambodia license. So, I'm praying for traveling mercies, and would invite you to do so as well.

I'll be keeping a few loose dollars on hand in case the coppers pull us over and trying to concentrate on the road and remembering how to drive stick. Here goes nothing!

We arrived at the Kalimpong Home 2 early yesterday, and got to see the kids eating their breakfast and getting ready for school. We're shooting a lot of video this year, and one of the four videos we're producing is focused on education, so we wanted to capture some of the "day in the life" kinds of images we'll need for that project.

For a home with 25 kids, two parents and "aunties," things went really quite smoothly. The children all enjoyed their breakfast together in the main living area, and then the aunties and parents helped the girls comb their hair, braiding it or putting it in ponytails. The aunties and mom, Punam, slicked back the boys' hair, and helped them straighten their ties Dad, Sunil, touched up all of the shoes with polish and a brush. The kids then piled into vans and headed off to school.

We then went with Nandu and Kumal, a driver from the church, and visited Jubilee High School, where 16 of our kids, mostly from the Kalimpong 1 home, attend. I was impressed by the school -- it's semi-public, and all of the courses are taught in English. The headmaster and the teachers seem highly qualified and treat the children firmly, but with respect.

After hanging at Jubilee and taking videos and photos in our kids' classes, we headed to the Asia's Hope school for more footage, but also some fun and games. The school is in a rented building (we'd love to have our own building some day -- more on that later...), but is very well suited to the needs of the nearly 100 Asia's Hope elementary-age students who study there.

We have a large concrete playground, about the size of a basketball court. This is extremely unusual in this part of India, where everything is built into the side of a mountain, and flat land is at a premium. We enter the campus as road-level, and then descend along a steep, curving driveway. The property consists of the playground, two wooden outbuildings and a large, three-story brick building. The school occupies the ground floor of the large building and one of the smaller wooden structures. Our Kalimpong 2 home occupies the second story, and the landlord's family lives on the top floor. (Whereas all of our homes in Cambodia and Thailand are single-family structures, I think that in Kalimpong's land-scarce and expensive real estate mountainside real estate market, building in this town will mean stacking our homes in the fashion of the locals.)

Even though Asia's Hope is primarily dedicated to providing family-style homes for orphaned children, I really love this school. Our headmistress, Mrs. Wang Lamu, is an experienced educational administrator whose firm, yet grandmotherly bearing earns the respect and affection of our kids and staff alike. Our teachers are young and energetic, and so patient with our kids.

And patience is definitely required in this job. As Mrs. Wang Lamu told us yesterday, when these kids first come to Asia's Hope, they come in as orphans. Some have lived on the street, some have been abused. Some have lived in bus stations, others have lived in brothels. Many of the children have no idea how to sit in a chair on their first day of school, some have only received their first-ever pair of shoes only days before. At first, reading, writing and 'rithmatic are simply out of the question. In some cases, they don't even know how to use a toilet -- they'll just wander outside to go potty; sometimes they'll even do it in the classroom.

But in a matter of months, the new kids learn from their peers, and from loving teachers and parents, and before long, they're actually learning. Our kids stay at the Asia's Hope school until they're ready to transition into local schools. And when they do, they're poised for success. Some of our kids at Jubilee High School are among the top in their class! It's amazing what progress a child can make when they're in a school and a home that is designed around their needs.

So while politicians in the States claim to leave no child behind, that's a reality at Asia's Hope. Rather than forcing our kids into a learning environment in which they cannot succeed, we work hard to create and maintain one that ensures each child gets the care they need to learn and grow and thrive.

Like our elementary school in Prek Eng, Cambodia -- and unlike each of our children's home -- the Asia's Hope school in Kalimpong, India has no permanent sponsorships. We fund this school out of our general budget, the same budget we rely on for medical emergencies, home repairs, staff salaries and other recurring needs. Please pray for our two schools. And if you want to participate financially in the operation of these schools on a one-time or long-time basis, I'd love to hear from you!

As our days have gotten zooier, and my time alone for introspection scarcer, I've gotten a little behind on my blogging. I may be able to rectify that, but I can't make any promises.

Right now I'm running on the proverbial fumes. One of the only things I don't love about Northeastern India is the 4:00 a.m. sunrises at this time of year. It's been playing havoc with me sleep, and I'm almost always tired. Wah. Okay. I'm almost finished complaining: our hotel also lacks light-blocking curtains, so if I wake up at 4:00 am as I did this morning, there's no chance of me getting back to sleep.

Okay.

At any rate, the first part of our trip was really about maintaining and deepening my family's and my relationship with Nandu, his wife and two kids. With more than 150 staff, it's impossible for me to have deep personal frienships with all of them, my affection for each of them notwithstanding. But it's essential that I stay close with my top guys in each country.

As you may know, relational equity and social capital are of infinitely greater value in Asian business and ministry than in Western. In the U.S., for example, you can fly into Boise, walk into a conference room at a Holiday Inn, be introduced to your new regional manager at 8:00 in the morning and launch into a frank and open S.W.O.T. analysis before you've finished you first cream cheese danish. Not so in Asia, where interconnected -- and to me often-incomprehensible -- systems of personal and quasi-familial relationships underly every interaction, business, ministry or otherwise. So for me, sharing a meal is a part of my job whether or not we "talk shop" or explain to each other the differences between cricket and baseball.

Nevertheless, there's quite a lot of work work that we need to get done in the remaining time in India. And that time is slipping by, tick-tick-tick. Addison Smith, my colleage and project manager, and Jared Heveron, a videographer from Scarlet City, one of our partnering churches in Columbus, Ohio, arrived on Monday, and Nandu and I spent the day driving from Kalimpong to Siliguri, and then after we picked them up at Bagdogra Airport, from Siliguri to Darjeeling to Kalimpong.

Yesterday, Tuesday, we spent the entire morning and most of the afternoon at a dance and music recital that our kids had been preparing for the last few weeks. It was wonderful -- we have some unbelievably cute and talented kids -- but it was very long. Five hours long if you include the lunch. Jared got some great video, and I got a couple good photos as well. In the evening, we met with our Indian lawyer, who is helping us navigate India's byzantine bureaucracy.

We leave India next Monday, so we've still got a lot to do. We have four videos to produce. Thankfully, Jared's sticking around for our Cambodia trip as well and then returning to India with another shooter and some storytellers afterwards. I'm sure we'll get them all "in the can," but right now I don't see how. So today we're meeting with Nandu to go over the shot list and make a plan to get rolling.

We also have at least one more meeting with our lawyer, budget and fundraising discussions, photos of all our staff and kids, various documentation projects and other miscellanea. Not only that, I want to spend more time playing with the kids, chatting with the staff and hanging out at each of our 4 homes. Oh, and we need to look at land for a future capital campaign. So, yeah.

But things are going well. I really do believe not only in Asia's Hope's overall philosophy and strategy, but in Asia's Hope India specifically. Our location is fascinating, complex and of extreme strategic importance. We border China, Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh, and are not far at all from Myanmar. We are at one of the world's great crossroads for migration, a dubious distinction given the illicit and exploitative nature of much of that transnational travel. We are in the nation with the world's greatest number of slaves, the most orphans, and much of the worst labor and sex trafficking. I could spend the rest of my life just focusing on India, expand Asia's Hope to 100 times its current size and impact and still have only scratched the surface.

But God and his people are on the move in India, this vast, diverse country, home to five times as many people as were alive on the planet in the time of Christ. Our ministry is a tiny one, only a bubble on a great sea of need. But we're willing. And we're trying to move ahead with purpose and integrity. And that's what we've been called to do. And I'm so grateful to have all of you along for emotional, moral and financial support. This is all very good.